


Where the Love Light Gleams

by LayALioness



Series: 12 Days of Bellarke! [4]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Childhood Friends, Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-04
Updated: 2015-12-04
Packaged: 2018-05-04 21:09:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5348579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LayALioness/pseuds/LayALioness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke comes home for Christmas, and also for Bellamy Blake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where the Love Light Gleams

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to be totally honest, the last half of this was written while I was tipsy on some very alcoholic eggnog, because HOLIDAYS. Do with that information what you will.
> 
> Title from I'll Be Home For Christmas

It’s Clarke’s first trip back home since she left for university, and she’s nervous, but not for any of the reasons that make sense.

“You’ll be fine,” Lexa rolls her eyes, dropping her off at the airport. Lexa likes to coat her support in vinegar, so no one will think she actually _cares_.

“I know,” Clarke agrees, because she does understand, logically, that nothing is going to go wrong. She’s going to fly home, and Wells will pick her up from the airport, and she’ll get to meet Raven finally, and she’ll wear pajamas for two weeks and eat a lot of peanut butter fudge. It’ll be awesome.

“Then act like it,” Lexa grumbles, amused in spite of herself. It should probably be weird, that Clarke’s best friend at university is the girl she drunkenly hooked up with at a bar, but. Her other best friends are her step-brother, his girlfriend, whom Clarke’s never even _met_ , and Bellamy.

Bellamy’s probably the weirdest friendship she has, to be honest, but she is actively not thinking about that.

“I’ll be fine,” Clarke echoes dutifully, leans over to kiss Lexa on the cheek, and then tugs her rollaway suitcase from the back of Lexa’s convertible. It’s sleek and small and silver, and resembles a bullet, which is everything Lexa looks for in a car.

“Text me when you land,” she orders. “Or call me up in a panic—whichever you’d prefer.”

“As always, your tenderness has left me feeling warm and fuzzy,” Clarke says, dry, and Lexa grins.

“Now at least you’ll be prepared,” she says, prim, before driving off.

For the next hour, it’s easy to forget about going home, about seeing Bellamy—there’s security to get through, and then fifteen minutes to kill at one of those open-faced coffee bars, with a bunch of plastic wrapped biscotti in mugs, and Clarke buys all of it.

But then she’s on the plane, after the adrenaline rush of take-off, and the flight attendants’ safety skit, and suddenly all Clarke can do is think about it.

She wishes, very genuinely, that she was old enough to order those mini bottles of vodka and tequila, or maybe rum. She tried the Peach-Malibu kind at a party once, and it did the trick, but she feels like the hard stuff might work better.

It isn’t a very long flight, barely three hours, and when she steps outside the sun is brighter than it was before, that pale kind of yellow that seems to come with winter.

She’s expecting Wells, maybe with Raven, each holding a sign with her name in Wells’s nice penmanship, spelled out with one of his fancy writing quills that he collects.

But instead, there’s Bellamy, holding the kind of dry erase board that hangs on dorm room doors, with PRINCESS in bright red dry-erase marker.

Clarke freezes when she sees him, even though she knows he’s already seen her, and is probably confused. It’s just—she’d thought she’d have more time, to collect herself before she had to actually _see_ him. Sure, they’ve skyped a few times in the past year, and he actually gave in and got a iphone three months ago so now they can facetime, too, but. It’s not the same, seeing his pixelated grin, as the real thing shining down on her.

Eventually, she steadies her heart and keeps moving, and lets him sweep her up in his arms, because when Bellamy hugs you, it’s always whole-hearted.

He smells like hot chocolate and popcorn and _Bellamy_ , and Clarke turns her face into his neck to breathe it in.

“Welcome home, Clarke,” he grins, pulling back, and swipes the handle of her suitcase before she can.

“What happened to Wells?” she asks, because it’s not really like her step-brother, to surprise her like this. He’d at least send a warning text.

Bellamy frowns. “He had a last-minute work thing—he said he’d text you.”

Clarke pulls out her phone, turned off for the flight, and finds three missed messages.

“Whoops?”

Bellamy shakes his head a little, grinning, and swings his arm around her shoulders as he leads the way to his car. It should make her feel warm, and safe, and it _does_ , because it’s Bellamy, but. It also makes her stomach sink, because it’s exactly what he would do, when she was fifteen and he was eighteen, showing her how to kick a ball around.

One whole year and nothing’s changed, and she wishes she could feel at least a little relieved about it—that she hadn’t completely ruined things on her last night in Ark, when Octavia, Monty and Jasper through an impromptu goodbye party for her and Wells. It came complete with some of their very own stash of blackberry moonshine, distilled in the old tub in the garden shed-turned-clubhouse, in Jasper’s backyard.

Mostly, they all just got really drunk and tried—and failed—to play a bunch of board games, while Octavia played all her favorite music way too loud, and Bellamy kept the wall propped up with disapproval. He kept switching people’s drinks out with plain water, hoping they wouldn’t notice. For the most part, they didn’t, and whenever he found one passed out on the stairs or the living room carpet or something, he’d just sort of sigh heavily and toss an old blanket on their back.

By the end of the night, Clarke was only _mostly_ drunk, and she’d found her way to Bellamy, like she always did. She curled up with him on the wraparound porch, hugging her knees, sweaty from summer, humming lazily to whatever Backstreet Boys song O put on next.

She was seventeen—just three days from eighteen, from adulthood, just one day from leaving her hometown. And Bellamy was laughing at something she said, probably because she slurred the words a little, and she smiled because she _loved_ his laugh. She loved everything about him, had ever since she was fifteen years old, the youngest on the Varsity team, and Assistant Coach Bellamy Blake stepped in when some of the senior girls started teasing her about her boobs.

He let her follow him around, after that, but he never made her feel like some lost little duckling. Instead, he teased her and he brought her book recommendations from his job at the library, and he took her to his sister’s birthday parties, even though she wasn’t even technically invited.

And eventually Clarke became Octavia’s friend too; she was just one grade below her, and they had more things in common, like high school and experimental kissing. Clarke still isn’t sure if Bellamy knows she was Octavia’s first kiss, but he was flushing the day after that sleepover, so it’s pretty likely.

But she always went back to Bellamy, in the end. Octavia was fun, but Octavia was popular, flitting between social groups easily and always taking care to spend the same amount of time with each. And Clarke’s only real other friend was Wells, but she lived with him, and they could only be together for so long before seeking different corners.

And Bellamy was nice, in a grumpy sort of way. He was always nice to Clarke, teasing, but nice. And he was cool, and interesting, and smart, and easy to talk to. But he was also an adult, a student at the community college, clearly farther along than Clarke, with worries and thoughts that she’d never had yet. And she was just a kid, and a minor, so of course she didn’t _pursue_ him, or anything, but.

There was always that thought, fluttery and hopeful in the back of her mind, that maybe when _she_ was an adult too, when she was eighteen and blooming and finally in control of herself; maybe he might feel the same way.

But then she got drunk at her own goodbye party, and practically crawled into his lap, pushing her mouth on his, sloppy and needy and the opposite of _cool_ , like she’d always imagined.

He pushed her away, soft, like he was nervous about hurting her, and it took everything she had not to cry.

He held her hair back while she leaned over the railing and threw up on his mother’s hydrangeas, and she was honestly too drunk to feel the proper amount of mortification, but she had the next day’s three-hour flight to go over every minute, hungover, and ashamed.

Wells was the only one she told, and he was nice enough about it, but he couldn’t offer much useful advice. The farthest he’d gone with anyone was when he kissed Roma once on a dare, and in his own words, _it_ _was_ _nice, but a little weird_.

Clarke’s first two weeks at university were awful, spent constantly torn between freaking out about her classes, and losing her best friend. On the second week, her roommate dragged her to some party at a sorority house on Greek Row. She was expecting lots of tiki lights and foam bubbles, but the house looked more like an armory from the Middle Ages, than anything else. There was a lot of dark leather, and a decorative sword hung up on the wall.

That’s where she met Lexa, though she was already half-drunk at the time, so the memory’s a little hazy. She _does_ remember waking up in a stranger’s bed, and hiding away in the bathroom, googling safety protocols for unprotected sex. Until Anya, one of Lexa’s sorority sisters, just broke into the room with a butter knife, because she had class in an hour and that shower had the best water pressure.

Lexa was back in her room when Clarke snuck in to get her purse, and shoes, and favorite bra that she really hoped wasn’t lost or burned in the fireplace as a ritual, or something.

All it took was a single raised eyebrow from her in invitation, for Clarke to break down and tell the whole story—from him rescuing her on the soccer field, to that _stupid fucking kiss_. Lexa was clearly unimpressed by it all.

“Good lord, just text the man,” she said, like it was obvious. And then, because she does actually have _some_ empathy tucked away, she added “Luna is making breakfast burritos. I’m assuming you’d like one.” She made a face. “They’re vegan, just so you know. She reread _Slaughterhouse Five_ last week.”

So Clarke stayed for breakfast, and it turned out she and Lexa had the same econ class that they hadn’t yet studied for, and after that it became pretty easy to be friends.

They didn’t hook up again, though. It didn’t seem fair to sleep with her, while Clarke was still pining for her childhood crush. She _knew_ it was pathetic, but. At least she wasn’t pathetic and a dick.

And in the end, she didn’t have to text Bellamy, anyway—she’d started dozens of message drafts, but she just couldn’t figure out what to say. _Hey sorry I stuck my tongue in your mouth, still friends?_ didn’t seem to quite cut it.

But then her phone beeped just after dinner, while she was staring at her biology textbook so hard her vision was going blurry.

_Hey, just wanted to check in. Sorry it took so long, but I know that first year can be hard and figured you’d want some time to adjust. How’s it going?_

It was precise and polite, and very _un_ -Bellamy, but. It was a start.

_Not bad. How are all ur dumb nerd classes?_

That was all it took to get him riled up again, sounding like himself—grumpy and complaining about Oxford commas and the library of Alexandria and a dozen other things she really only ever cared about when they were coming from him.

Neither of them mentioned the kiss, which she was mostly grateful for, but. It might have been easier, hearing him turn her down for good. She might have finally been able to move on, to stop hoping.

Which is where she’s at now, as he desperately tries not to grind the gears of his shitty Saturn, the one he bought off of Craigslist because he refused to just go shop at a car lot. And now he has this monstrosity that he barely knows how to drive, and eats all his cassette tapes—because it only takes _cassette tapes_ , seriously—and runs off of old donut grease he gets from the coffee shop downtown.

“It’d be ironic, if I traveled all the way home, just to die in a fiery car explosion two blocks from my house,” Clarke muses, and Bellamy grits his teeth, shifting back into third.

“Not a proper use of _ironic_ ,” he snaps, and she grins, kicking her feet up on the dash like she knows he hates.

They do make it to her house without dying, which she counts as a plus, and when she says so, he shoves her. But he still carries her bag all the way to the door, even though she could have easily managed.

“You’re probably jetlagged, or whatever,” he hedges, looking awkward on her front steps, and, for the first time, Clarke thinks maybe _something’s_ changed.

“I go to school in Connecticut,” she teases. “We’re in the same time zone.”

Bellamy huffs a little, grumbling under his breath, before sighing. “O’s boyfriend has the new Wii U,” he shrugs one shoulder. “If you wanted to come over.”

“Are you bribing me with video games? Actually, that doesn’t surprise me. What _does_ surprise me, is apparently Octavia’s got a boyfriend that you somehow haven’t yet killed.”

He grins, crooked and boyish, even with the scruff of beard he hasn’t shaved yet. He’s older, she knows, at twenty-one, but he still looks just like the eighteen year old out on that field. “Give it time,” he says, even though she knows he doesn’t mean it. “His name’s Atom. I kind of had to take pity on him, for that.”

“Jesus,” Clarke says, and he laughs. “Who names their kid Atom?”

“Astrophysicists, apparently.”

“Assholes.”

“Yeah, definitely. So, are you or are you not taking the bribe of video games?”

Clarke pretends to think it over, before giving a nod. “I am,” she decides, and he gives one last wave before heading back out to his car, dotted with the little snow flurries lazily falling from the sky.

There’s every possibility, she knows, that he’s only inviting her to hang out the way he used to, as a way to force her into human interaction. He’ll probably try to force some food on her, just in case.

But—he seemed _nervous_. The kind of nervous that comes with first dates, or first kisses, or any type of first, really. The kind that comes with asking out the person you like.

Clarke drags her suitcase upstairs, hitting the edge of each step with a heavy _thunk_ , grimacing each time, even though it’s not like she’s trying to sneak around. Her bedroom’s basically as she left it—lots of collages made out of cut up magazine covers, and those paint color cards from Lowe’s. Big, fluffy bed with the mint green comforter she replaced with a more _grown-up_ , navy one, for college. Big, fluffy pillows with cats cross stitched across. Big, fluffy canopy of white gauze, that used to catch on _everything_ , and sometimes tangle up her legs at night until she thought she was being suffocated.

But there’s also an Elliptical in one corner, probably her step-dad’s failed New Year’s resolution, stuck in here for convenience. She doesn’t mind, but it’s always sort of irked her, that his two hundred dollar hobbies only ever last six weeks, before he shoves them away in a closet or spare room. They have so many juicers they could donate.

Clarke’s barely just changed out of her stale airplane-ride clothes, when a girl walks through her door.

“There you are,” Raven crows, marching over to give her a hug. “Fucking _finally_.”

“Blame your boyfriend,” Clarke grins, and she probably shouldn’t feel this close to her already, since most of their friendship involves shit talking on the internet, or tagging each other in cute animal pictures, but. She can’t really help it. “He ditched me at the last second.”

Raven pulls back to waggle her eyebrows. “The way I heard, he was helping you get game.”

“I have plenty of game on my own,” Clarke sniffs, but Raven still looks skeptical. “Have you met Bellamy, yet?”

“Yeah, yesterday. Wells dragged me around to show off all his old haunts.”

“So, the library, basically,” Clarke grins.

“Basically,” Raven agrees. “But I met all his friends, too, including your future husband.”

“Bellamy doesn’t believe in the institution of marriage,” Clarke says, not missing a beat, which is probably more damning than if she’d said literally _anything_ else. It’s worse than saying _nothing_.

Raven looks unimpressed.

And then she seems to take in the rest of her, with a frown. “What are you wearing?”

Clarke glances down at herself—she’s wearing jeans, plain and ordinary but well-fitting, and the Christmas sweater Bellamy gave her the year she turned sixteen. It’s red and white and green, the exact sort of pattern you’d expect from a Christmas sweater. It’s also shrunk pretty badly, from when her roommate mixed up their laundry and threw it in the wash. Clarke had, embarrassingly, cried over it at the time, because she was PMSing that week, and already feeling emotionally vulnerable.

Now, it’s still soft as ever, but it’s tight enough to sit right at her hip bones, snug over her chest.

Clarke eyes the capital C in bold red, stretched across her torso. “It’s a sweater,” she shrugs, and she pointedly does _not_ tell Raven who got it for her, but she’s pretty sure she can tell.

“Right,” Raven drawls. “Did I tell you Finn cornered Jaha at work?”

Wells had told Clarke about Finn at the very beginning, back when he first met Raven and they became friends. It takes a lot for Wells to complain about a person, so when he called Finn Collins a _bonafide jackass_ , Clarke believed it.

“Oh my god, did he actually fight? I didn’t think Wells knew _how_ to fight! He was writing Amnesty International letters at, like, eleven.”

“Even better,” Raven grins. “He defended my honor, with a _speech_ , all about how fighting over women like they’re objects is _morally reprehensible_ , and how I deserve to be my own person and fight for myself. It was great, seriously. People clapped at the end.”

“That does sound like him. Speaking of which, where is he?”

Raven makes a face. “He had some conference call with a professor. He’s in the office on his dad’s enormous phone.” They’re at the bottom of the stairs now, with Raven gripping Clarke’s arm a little, to help offset her bad leg.

Suddenly, she freezes, and Clarke glances back. “What is it?”

Raven releases a breath and glares at the carpet. “I thought I saw that fucking demon.”

“ _What_?”

“The demon,” Raven repeats, mild. “That you call a cat.”

“Crowley?” Clarke asks, feeling a little guilty. She’d completely forgotten about him, which is honestly easy to do, since he’s basically a hermit. She wouldn’t be surprised if he was actually dead; just some cat ghost, periodically haunting their house.

“Yeah, what the fuck with that name, by the way?”

Clarke shrugs. “It was during my _Supernatural_ phase.” Raven makes a face. “I’m surprised you even saw him.”

“I hope I never do again,” she says, with feeling. “Cats are assholes.”

“Yeah, but in a good way,” Clarke argues, and they find Wells in the kitchen, leaning on the counter, reading something on his phone. He’s squinting a little, because he always loses his glasses, and straightens when he sees them walk in.

“You’re home,” he grins, tugging Clarke in to his side. “And you guys met!”

“Yeah, shit happens when you’re not looking,” Raven teases, but Wells just rolls his eyes. “I’m gonna go fortify our room,” she adds, heading back towards the stairs. “So that demon can’t get in.”

“Raven, don’t murder my cat,” Clarke calls after her, and hears a muffled response that she thinks is _no promises!_ She turns to Wells, exasperated, and he throws up his palms.

“Don’t look at me,” he warns. “I don’t tell her what to do.”

“So I’ve heard,” she grins, and then hesitates. “So, um. How’s the uh—how’s the kissing?”

Wells looks at her, amused. “If you’re trying to ask if I’ve slept with her, the answer is no,” he says, but he sounds fine about it. “She’s agreed to go slow. The kissing’s great though,” he grins, and laughs when Clarke grimaces. “You asked! I’m asexual, Clarke, not an amoeba. I just want to take my time with things.”

“I’m glad you found her,” she says, and she means it. She remembers Wells in high school, back when he was still figuring everything out and confused and convinced he’d just spend the rest of his life alone, and he was okay with that, but—Wells is the kind of person who gives everything he has for the people he loves, and she’d always thought it’d be a shame, to waste that. “And that you finally coaxed her into dating you.”

“Yeah, it was definitely hard,” he says, wry. “A lot of bribing was involved.”

“That’s what I figured,” Clarke agrees, serious, before tucking a stray curl behind her ear. There’s really no way to try to play this off nonchalantly—Wells has known she’s half in love with Bellamy for almost as long as she has. “I’m going over to Bellamy’s, actually. Apparently there’s a Wii U. Also, I might have to stop him from murdering some kid named Atom.”

Wells just watches, looking a little smug. “Oh?”

Clarke makes a face, and hits him with one of the spare oven mitts left out on the counter. It’s floral, but way too big for her mom, so Thelonious must have taken up baking again.

“Ugh, shut up,” she groans, heading over to the door.

“Nice sweater, by the way!” he calls after her, and she flicks him off before she leaves.

Bellamy lives just two blocks over, and Clarke makes it there in record time, hair soaked from snow, and seriously regretting she didn’t wear a warmer jacket.

She hesitates at the door a little, unsure if she should knock. She never did, back in high school—the Blake’s had an open-door policy, and the house was essentially the neighborhood group home, with Octavia’s high school friends and Bellamy’s college friends waltzing in and out as they pleased.

But Clarke isn’t _in_ high school, anymore, and it’s been months since she’s been at the house. She isn’t sure if the rules have changed.

Then, as usual, Bellamy seems to just _know_ , and swoops in to make the decision for her, by opening up the door.

He’s still wearing the same clothes for earlier, all except the shoes, so she’s left staring at his bright red and green socks.

“Hey,” he grins, wide and messy, just the way she likes, because it’s the realest. “You made it.”

“Obviously,” she scoffs, stepping inside and kicking her boots off, trying not to get the toes of her socks wet from the snow on them. “So, where are these video games I was promised?” She looks up to catch Bellamy staring at her chest.

It takes her a moment to realize he’s not staring at her _chest_ , so much as her sweater, which she has some mixed feelings about. On the one hand, Bellamy isn’t really the type to ogle a girl’s boobs—but on the other, the thought of Bellamy Blake checking her out?

Yeah, she’s okay with that.

“I told you it shrunk,” she points out, because she did, and that seems to snap him out of the daze.

“Yeah, uh, about that,” he tips his head towards the stairs, and leads her up to his room.

It looks caught between a teenage boy’s, and a grown man’s, with a combination of _Lord of the Rings_ collectible figurines, _World of Warcraft_ posters alongside Bayern Munich, and stacks of paperwork and textbooks and bill envelopes with the tops shredded open, like he’d used his teeth.

Clarke’s never really been sure what Aurora Blake does for a living, other than the fact that ten months of the year she spends oversees, only ever coming back between March, May and April. She thinks it has something to do with the Navy, but. Bellamy doesn’t like to talk about his mom, and Octavia claims not to care, so.

Bellamy rifles around in an ocean of clothes—Clarke thinks they might have started out as separate piles with different meanings, but by now they’ve all bled together in one large denim-cotton blob.

Finally, he pulls out something red and green and gold, tossing it in her general direction. When she holds it up, she can see it’s a sweater; large and comfortable-looking, with a giant gold C on the front, almost identical to the first one, except, obviously, larger.

“Where do you keep finding these?” she asks, mostly to cover up the fact that she’s blushing.

Bellamy shrugs a little, noncommittal, and smooths his way by her to get to the stairs. “Ready to get your ass kicked at Mario Party?” he teases, and she hits him with her new sweater.

“No way,” she scoffs, tossing her nose in the air so he laughs. “I never lose.”

She loses five games in a row, before winning the sixth by sticking her feet in his face during the last round. Octavia and Atom have snuck up to her room by then, presumably to make out, which means it is clearly Clarke’s duty as a girl friend, to distract the older brother.

Except, he doesn’t really need much distracting, to be honest. He seems perfectly content to keep her legs stretched over his lap, thumbs stroking over her shins when he’s not busy with the controller, chatting aimlessly to catch each other up on their lives.

She tells him about Lexa, and how they met, and studies him carefully all the while, trying to see if he seems tense about it, or maybe even jealous.

He doesn’t, just warns her to be careful, as usual, and then gets up to pee.

While he’s gone, Octavia sneaks down on a mission for snacks, but she pauses to tip her head at Clarke, sprawled out on the sofa.

“Is that one of Bell’s?” she asks, nodding to the giant sweater that Clarke shrugged on earlier. “What happened to your old one? I thought it was too small.”

“It’s not too small, it just shrunk a little,” Clarke says, petulant, and then shrugs. “I told him, so I guess he bought a new one, which was nice of him.” She pauses, to frown back at Octavia, whose eyes look ready to fall from her head. “What?”

“He made you a _second one_?” she demands, sounding outraged. “He only made me a second one after I outgrew the first, like, _three years later_. I had to beg!”

“Wait, what do you mean?” Clarke looks down at the front of her sweater, nearly immaculate in symmetry, and runs a hand over the golden yarn, filled with flecks that catch the light and sparkle. “He _makes_ these?”

Octavia scoffs. “It takes him _ages_ , too. I used to call him Mrs. Weasley, since he made one for all of us.”

He did, Clarke knows—or, at least, she knew he’d _bought_ one for everyone. Wells still has his, and Monty and Jasper, she’s pretty sure. She’d thought they were from some online boutique, or something, that specialized in alphabetical sweaters. She never thought…

O gives one last noise of disgust, grumbling _unbelievable_ as she stalks into the kitchen, still grumbling when she marches back out, arms filled and towering with bags of tortilla chips and chocolate-covered raisins, and what looks like it might be straight gin.

Bellamy gets back a few minutes later, and by now Clarke’s moved on to the weird balloon-popping game, flicking her wrist lazily to convince the controller she’s actually doing the work.

He picks up her legs and settles back underneath them again, looking content to just watch her play, and Clarke suddenly knows that if she says nothing, he’ll keep letting her think he just bought her sweaters for ten dollars on ebay, or something.

Just like he wouldn’t bring up the kiss.

So instead, Clarke shuffles around, kicking him a few times on accident as she tries to sit up, and Bellamy shoots her a confused glare, until suddenly she’s on her knees pressed right up beside him, looking serious and a little mad.

She’s close enough to see his jaw work, to see his throat move as he swallows, to see his eyes flick down _just_ at her mouth before they’re up again, almost panicked. He’s clearly trying very hard. She wishes he wouldn’t.

“Why didn’t you tell me you made them?” she asks, and she tries to keep her voice steady, but mostly she just sounds hurt.

Was he embarrassed? Did he think she’d judge him for his knitting? She’s not really sure why he’d think that, but. She doesn’t understand why he’d bother keeping the hobby a secret. Honestly, he’s lucky she didn’t find out until now, since Octavia is _the_ worst secret-keeper of all time.

Bellamy scowls at the TV, like it’s the game’s fault, or something. “I thought it might be weird,” he admits. “Or, you might feel weird about it. Knowing I spent so much time, making something for you.”

“But you make them for everyone,” she points out, and he glances over at her.

“Not everyone,” he wets his lips, and she follows the movement. “Just the people I care about.”

“And this one?” Clarke pulls at the hem of her second sweater, big and baggy, falling down her thighs. She’s folded the first and set it down on the coffee table, so she won’t forget it. Even if it’s snug, and maybe a _little_ on the small side, she still loves it. She’s not giving it up any time soon.

When he doesn’t answer, she adds “Octavia said you don’t make anyone more than one. Except her. And, I guess, me.”

Bellamy’s eyes flick up to hers and away, so she nudges his shoulder.

“What does that mean?” she presses, and he turns his head, so they’re just inches apart.

“What do you think it means?” he asks, and he’s being kind of a cryptic asshole right now, so she almost doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction of a straight answer.

Except, she’s pretty sure she already knows.

“That you care about me,” Clarke echoes, and he gives a small nod. “But, you care about me more.”

“I care about you differently,” Bellamy says, and she purses her lips, trying not to grin when he watches her mouth move.

“Define _differently_.”

Slow enough that she could move, or stop him, Bellamy reaches over to slide a hand up under the side of her sweater, palm warm and heavy against her skin. He moves it up to rest with his thumb just grazing the bottom of her bra, and leans in to brush his nose against her cheekbone, surprisingly sweet.

“Want me to show you?” His voice is hoarse, but hers can’t be much better, not with how her throat keeps working at the sound. She just nods, and lets him tilt her face to kiss her, slow and wet almost instantly, as both of them open up with a sigh.

Clarke isn’t sure how long they’re kissing, but when he finally pulls back, she’s on her back against the sofa, with Bellamy slotted in between her thighs, as she shamelessly cants her hips up against him.

“I probably shouldn’t fuck you in the communal space,” he says, but he sounds like he’s trying to convince himself. “Octavia could see—or Atom,” he adds, and Clarke gives a muzzy thought _ah, so he hasn’t completely forgotten about them_ , and grins.

“I’m in love with you,” she sighs, tangling her fingers in his hair, and she refuses to get anxious when he tenses up in her arms. “I have been for a while.” She worries her lip, trying to decide how much to tell. “Since you defended me to those girls, who were making fun of my boobs.”

Bellamy huffs a laugh, bending down to smack a kiss at the top of her breast, the skin bared by the dip of her neckline, tugged down and stretched. “Which makes no fucking sense,” he grumbles. “You have the best boobs of all time.”

Clarke grins up at him, hopeful in a way she hasn’t really felt in years, and tugs his mouth back to hers. “I really love you,” she says, soft, and he pulls back to stare at her. “Like, a stupid amount.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Bellamy swears, ducking down to kiss her, hot and rushed and desperate. “ _Fuck_ —okay, you have to be quiet.” And then he flicks the button of her jeans and slides his hand into her underwear, pressing his face to her neck with a moan when he feels she’s already wet.

“That’s my line,” Clarke says, and the last of it turns to a gasp as he slides a finger inside her, thumb brushing tight circles against her clit, sloppy with need.

She’s already at the edge, giving shallow little pants against the palm of his hand, covering her mouth to muffle her, when he moves his mouth to her ear and says, low, “I fucking love you,” and she lets out a whine as she comes.

Bellamy takes his hand off her mouth with a self-satisfied smile, and Clarke nips at the skin of his jaw. “I was going to anyway,” she grumbles, and he presses a kiss to her sweaty hair as he buttons her jeans.

“Sure you were, princess.”

But when he rolls over a little, she can still feel him, hard and pressed against her leg. So she reaches up to nuzzle at the skin of his neck, snaking a hand down between them.

“It’s my turn, right?” She can feel him swallow against her mouth as she grins. She presses the tips of her fingers to his lips when he groans. “You have to be quiet,” she echoes, and sets to work.

Clarke’s parents are having one of their rich people dinner parties on Christmas Eve, so Bellamy and Octavia host a Christmas Eve lunch party, instead. She and Wells wear their custom-made sweaters, and so do Monty and Jasper and Octavia—even Atom has one, which Clarke suspects Bellamy only made because Octavia forced him.

“When do I get one?” Raven demands, looking very put out in her generic Christmas sweater from Walmart. It’s nice enough, green with reindeer, but. It’s not one of _Bellamy’s_.

“When you’re a part of the family,” he shrugs, taking a long sip of eggnog. It’s more bourbon than egg, at this point, but no one’s complaining. He’d burnt the first few batches, before he finally gave in, and let Clarke look up the wiki-how instructions on her phone.

She’s spent nearly every day at the Blake house for the past week and a half. And, for the most part, it’s exactly like it was when they were just best friends—except now, she gets to kiss him whenever she wants to, which is obviously great.

They haven’t talked about her leaving soon to go back to school, while he stays and finishes his degree here at Ark. They’ll have to, probably before New Year’s, probably sooner than she’d like. But now that they’re on the same page, she’s feeling pretty confident.

Bellamy tugs her into his lap, and she steals the rest of his drink with a grin, licking her lips. “So I’m family, now?” she teases, low enough that it’s only for them.

He tightens his hand on her hip, bringing her closer, so he can press a kiss to her neck. He hums a little, and the vibrations of it make her skin tingle.

“You always were.”


End file.
